Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
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Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#2It looks like the lesson to take from this is not to create a fake persona for customer service, but to provide exemplary support. Other than the customers looking for a date, I doubt that satisfaction would be lower if "Alla" was actually "Daniel".
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#3I remember setting up a website back in the 90s for a construction equipment company. They had no way of easily tracking leads from the website versus people who just saw them in the yellow pages or something. So, their solution was to have a fake salesman's name on the website.
People would call and ask for him, and the caller would be told he was out of the office and someone else would be happy to help out. Meanwhile they'd know right off the bat how that customer got their number.
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#4I have to agree with martey here: the way you did support is fantastic, creating a fake persona is not. People like honesty and hate being fooled. If your customers found out about Alla, I think they would be very upset. Especially the ones who asked her out!
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#5I think the point of creating a "fake" person is so everyone involved can provide the support when ever they are available, and it looks like a unified source. I've done this a few times and it works very well, rather then having different people constantly responding.
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#6I have to agree with martey here: the way you did support is fantastic, creating a fake persona is not. People like honesty and hate being fooled. If your customers found out about Alla, I think they would be very upset. Especially the ones who asked her out!
That would have been really funny at a .com I was a developer at: our support persona was the CEO's dog's name...
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#7It looks like the lesson to take from this is not to create a fake persona for customer service, but to provide exemplary support. Other than the customers looking for a date, I doubt that satisfaction would be lower if "Alla" was actually "Daniel".
There is the case where your name is not common or not recognized easily by your target audience. I have a french name (Julien), try and pronounce that so an american knows what you are talking about (we target construction workers). Maybe the response wouldn't be "who are you again?" if my name was John or Eddy.
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#8It looks like the lesson to take from this is not to create a fake persona for customer service, but to provide exemplary support. Other than the customers looking for a date, I doubt that satisfaction would be lower if "Alla" was actually "Daniel".
There is the case where your name is not common or not recognized easily by your target audience. I have a french name (Julien), try and pronounce that so an american knows what you are talking about (we target construction workers). Maybe the response wouldn't be "who are you again?" if my name was John or Eddy.
I assume non-Francophone English speakers would pronounce Julien like the English "Julian".
My first name is the same as my username. In both email messages and phone calls, I am inevitably called Marty, Martin, or something else that is close to my name but still wrong. I like to think that it helps people remember me, and that in this globalized age (where small software companies can sell to people in 40 countries), it is not preventing me from getting or keeping clients.
edit: I guess I have not really responded to your comment, since you are talking about having people understand how to pronounce your name when you tell them. I am not sure that was applicable to the author's situation, since his company was selling in 40 countries, all of which might have different ideas about how to pronounce "Alla". For example, Alla is not a common name in the United States, while Daniel is.
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#9>She was also asked on a couple of dates.
Maybe things were different in the 90s (well, I know they were) but celebrating the success of your support offering based on gender isn't great advice to offer others.
Re: Alla Klein: a fake person in charge of customer support
#10I have to agree with martey here: the way you did support is fantastic, creating a fake persona is not. People like honesty and hate being fooled. If your customers found out about Alla, I think they would be very upset. Especially the ones who asked her out!
At the end of the day I don't think customers care whether it's a script, person or alien solving their problem. All that matters is a great experience and a resolved issue.